


Bester Makes Some Almost-Friends

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [159]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Bad Jokes, Boarding School, Canon Compliant, Dark Humor, Developing Friendships, Fencing, Fix-It, Gen, How canon misled you, Psi Corps, School, Sneaky Biased Writing, Teenagers, Telepath culture, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22950343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: For the year and a half Bester spends under Bey's wing, things are looking up for him. There's still some critical writing errors and gaps in the canon books that need to be fixed, however.(Again, this is a line-by-line fix-it.)The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!
Series: Behind the Gloves [159]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/677654
Kudos: 1





	Bester Makes Some Almost-Friends

**Author's Note:**

> New to _Behind the Gloves_? What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

First, my fix-it of the ending of the last chapter ( _Deadly Relations_ , 103-105), because some of you probably didn't see it. No triggery bits here. Text in black is original, text in red is inserted by me:

\-----

"Why?"

It was the only question Al could think of to ask, now that the two were finally alone. Bey swirled his coffee and gazed out at the creamy morning light on the canal. Al had spent the night in a cot in the barracks of the local MetaPol station – just like junior Psi Cop – while had Bey worked all night. Bey looked terrible – exhausted and ragged. Al knew the older man felt even worse than he looked.

Outside, a paddleboat with a young couple in bright yellow shirts disturbed a family of ducks. A third-story window opened, and a beautiful girl with long, white hair leaned out to enjoy the hint of breeze.

Bey didn't answer, aloud or in thought. He took a long sip of his coffee.

"I'm sorry, sir," Al said, sipping his own coffee.

"What are you sorry about, Mr. Bester? You didn't cause any of this."

"I know it upsets you when someone gets killed."

Bey seemed to consider that for a long while, as Amsterdam quickened, and the streets began filling with men and women in business suits, the fronts of restaurants and shops rolling up. The older man's eyes took all of that in, and his face was placid, but Al was certain that if he dared to scan him, he would hear Stravinsky playing.

"A few more minutes... a few more minutes and maybe we could have saved her..." Bey's voice trailed off. "Young telepaths fetch high prices on the black market. When they run away from school, sometimes we can find them alive, like we found you." Al winced inside. _But sometimes it's too late_ , the older man 'cast darkly, sipping his bitter coffee. "And when they get picked up by criminals before the Corps has them registered..." His voice trailed off again. "That's Saskia Grijs' business, what you saw there. Human trafficking. Teeps bring in the most profit."

"I didn't know this kind of thing still happened, sir, here on Earth."

Bey looked at him with dark cynicism. "There's a lot they don't teach you in school, Mr. Bester. You may not believe me, but you've lived a very sheltered life."

“But you've got them now, all the bad guys. They won't be able to hurt any more telepaths."

Bey said nothing for a long while.

"A fellow goes out to the country one day," Bey began, "and he stops in at this farm. He's talking to the farmer, when he notices this pig with three peg legs. Three wooden legs and one real one. He asks the farmer about it.

"'Let me tell you about this pig,' the farmer says. 'This is some pig. This pig saved my life once. The house was on fire, and this pig charged right in, dragged the wife and me out.'

"'That's pretty amazing,' the fellow said.

"'That's not all. This pig can do calculus and all kinds of mathematical whatnot. Why, some say he's even solved Fermat's last theorem.'

"'Seems I read that in the papers a few years ago,' the city fellow said.

"'Yep. Reporters came out for that one. Also, this pig can play the piano – he prefers Chopin. He really is some pig.'

"'Well, I have to agree,' the city fellow replied, 'but what happened to his legs?'

"'Well,' says the farmer, 'when you've got a pig this special, you don't want to eat him all at once.'"

Al blinked, felt his lips lift up involuntarily.

"Yes, it was a joke, Mr. Bester," Bey replied. "You are permitted to laugh."

"Yes, sir. It was an awful joke, if I may say so, sir."

"Mr. Bester, somehow I don't think of you as a connoisseur of humor, so I will take that as a compliment. Cultivate a sense of humor, Mr. Bester. You will need it to survive. And if you use it correctly, you might even be able to convince mundanes that you are almost Human." He finished off his coffee.

A group of patrons entered the cafe - university students, Al guessed, or perhaps a little younger. They instantly spotted the two telepaths - Al in his academy clothes, and Bey in his MetaPol uniform. An aging, weary, avenging angel in the corner.

"Look, a Psi Cop," Al heard one of them say to her companions, pointing. "Worst day of my life."

Al shot the normal girl a dangerous look. Worst day of _her_ miserable little life?

_Ignore them_ , Bey 'cast. _They're always like that._

Al could tell he meant more than those few students in particular. "Is it true," he asked, "that the student handbook was written by mundanes? My cadremate, Brett, said that–"

Bey nodded, slowly. "It all was, Mr. Bester. It all was."

Al felt lightheaded. He waited for Bey to stand and pay the bill.

"What do we do now, sir?" Al meant more than the present circumstances, but Bey wasn’t up for that discussion.

"I'll have to go to the arraignment this afternoon. I was thinking of sending you back to Geneva. You belong in school. The real world can wait for you a little longer."

"If I'm in the way, I understand."

"On the other hand, I have most of the day free, so perhaps we might take in a few museums – there is a very nice modern art museum here, you know. We can eat some frites and mayonnaise, wander along the waterfront, check out what was the red-light district, before the neo-Lutheran purge last century. Beautiful buildings that have seen centuries of the best and worst that Humans can do. We can remind ourselves that we are still alive, and that that is a fine thing indeed. What do you say, Mr. Bester?"

Al thought about all the studying he had backed up because of this trip. For once, he didn't care.

"That sounds fine to me, sir."

***

[The text then skips to about a year and a month later, though _unhelpfully doesn't tell you that_. We know it's warm weather and that Bester is a "senior" (later correctly explained to be a senior in the _Minor Academy_ , which means he's sixteen) and we know three months later is cold weather, so this is probably September. There is no summer vacation in the Corps - school is continuous - so though students do graduate from grade to grade, there isn't really a "start of a new school year" like there is in the normal world, only the start of new semesters or classes.

During the omitted year, Bester and Bey have been meeting regularly, even taking off-campus trips together to museums and such. Bey is becoming like a father to him, and Bester is learning to get along with other people in a more "regular" way. At Bey's suggestion, he's joined [the school fencing team](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961944) and the team is doing well.]

\-----

( _Deadly Relations_ p. 106-107)

The blade flicked out in what seemed to be a straight lunge, but Al knew it was a feint-disengage. He went for the parry anyway, but instead of staying put or advancing to riposte as his opponent expected, he took a brisk retreat, caught the elusive steel with a second parry in prime, slid neatly inside the enemy point, and riposted at last - a difficult move, but it looked very elegant if you could pull it off.

He pulled it off. Green light, his point.

The score was fourteen-fourteen. Al returned to the en garde line and pulled off his mask. He saluted his opponent, a long-jawed, big-boned fellow named Emory. Al flashed Emory a smile. "One more. Loser buys lunch."

Emory nodded a little nervously.

Perfectly relaxed, Al flexed his legs and dropped his foil to absence. They began to dance.

Emory was a bit predictable. He beat, advanced quickly in a low line, lunged, disengaged. He 'cast his next move - or what he wanted Al to think was his next move, a retreat-crossback-fléche - and instead did a lunge-and-duck, hoping Al would be suckered into running onto his blade.

Al went for it. Give the guy a break - he hadn't won a match all day, and this was, after, all, only practice. If they ever faced each other in an official bout, Emory would learn, to his dismay, that Al had been fencing about five notches below his best.

"Well done," Al said, taking off his mask and saluting. He strode forward enthusiastically to shake Emory's hand.

"It was a good bout," Emory said. "I'm surprised I beat you."

"Don't sell yourself short. You've got some good attacks. You sure suckered me with that last one. I guess I'm buying lunch."

Emory grinned. "I guess so. I - ah - I promised some friends I would meet them in the sandwich shop on the square. Would you mind being in company?"

"Not at all," Al replied. "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine."

[It's not yet "thinking about what's best for the team" level socializing, but he has learned that sometimes it matters to be "the best," and sometimes it's more important to do things that make people feel good about themselves, even if that means letting them beat you (and lying about it), because then if they feel good about themselves, they'll want to be around you, or at least _not mind_ being around you. In this case, Emory is two years younger than Bester, so he's happy to have an older friend.]

"... and the farmer says, 'Well, when you have a pig this special, you don't want to eat him all at once,' " Al finished.

All five made faces. Emory aside, Al hadn't met any of them before - they were all sophomores, and he was a senior.

"Thanks a lot, Al," one of the girls - Alemba - said. "Makes my ham sandwich all the tastier."

"I strive to give pleasure," Al replied. They were all still chuckling, Alemba included.

"So tell us, Al," Emory said, after the moment had passed, "what was it like, tracking down Brazg and Nielsson?"

Al put on a sober face. "You heard about that?"

[OK, authors, what? "You heard about that?" 1. This is the Corps, and nothing flies faster than a rumor in the Corps. 2. Even if this wasn't the Corps, this is a boarding school, I'm pretty sure rumors in boarding schools come in a close second. 3. He had to stand statue time for what he did, for two weeks... how could anyone in that school not know? 4. How does the whole not know very quickly if a student _runs away_ , let alone runs away to chase rogue telepaths and almost gets killed? That has to be the most exciting thing some of these kids have heard _ever_. And 5. It's been a year and three months, so yeah, everyone has heard about this, including a whole lot of students who weren't even at the school yet when this happened.]

"Everyone heard about that. A lot of us were rooting for you, when you had to be the statue of the week, but we were afraid to say so. The older kids-"

[In an upcoming section, Bester refers to Emery and Bester's other almost-friends on the fencing team as "laters," but I'm getting the feeling here, from the way Emory is talking, that he and the others aren't "laters" by the typical use of the term, only in the Cadre Prime meaning. Usually the term means someone who came into the Corps at puberty or later - both born to normal parents and one of the 95% who manifests at or after puberty - but in Cadre Prime, anyone who wasn't manifested from early childhood is a "later". If Bester stood his punishment a year and three months earlier, then these kids were at the school before the start of their freshman year in the Minor Academy, _and_ they were enculturated enough to understand what was happening, and be rooting for Bester. They hadn't just arrived.]

"I appreciate that, but it's just as well you kept quiet. The Corps doesn't punish without good reason. Going after those two was the dumbest thing I ever did in my life. I genuinely appreciated my punishment."

"Still, some people went too far. Fatima-"

[They mean "went too far" in tormenting him when he was a statue, not anything that came later.]

"I felt sorry for her," Al said. "I still do. I wish I had understood at the time how disturbed she was. Maybe I could have done something." He was surprised to realize that he really meant this. [PERFECT LINE.] "What she did to me was a symptom of her own problems. It didn't really have much to do with me."

[Dishonest author bias incoming, twelve o'clock!]

"That's right, you were there, weren't you - when she, you know..."

[Again, see? Everyone knows everything.]

Al nodded. "That hunt was part of my punishment, my lesson. The Corps really wanted me to understand the evil that's out there, the kinds of things that can happen to telepaths in the mundane world. Believe me, when I saw what that sick pervert did to her-" He broke off, strategically.

"It must have been awful," Dierdra said, her violet eyes round.

"Let's talk about more pleasant things," Al suggested.

\-----

A few essays ago, back when I was writing about Bey and Bester setting off to search for Fatima, I noted this:

_And the writing is sloppy - this scene has Bey referring to the rogue telepath "underground" in Amsterdam as "the underground railroad," and twice. WTF? It's sloppy, sneaky, dishonest author bias... let's have a high Corps official like Bey refer to rogue telepath criminals (like Brazg and Nielsson) as the "underground railroad," as if these guys are really about helping escaped "slaves" to freedom!_

_And it's not done to show that Bey really sympathizes with these networks. He sympathizes with runaways like Fatima, not with rogue telepath criminals who bomb and shoot Psi Cops, and kidnap telepath kids to sell them to traffickers._

_It's just bad writing._

_That's how strong the author bias is in this material._

Now they're at it again - what was it that Bey said to Bester at the start of their trip?

"Mr. Bester, I want to be clear about your position here. You are a student, and an observer. This sort of thing is not usual - I usually select advanced students from my class to accompany me, if anyone."

"I'm honored, sir, but may I ask - why me?"

"Think of it as a reward. You've pleased me, these past few months. I think you've come a long way. The Corps needs Psi Cops who know what they are doing, not-" He broke off and twiddled with his mustache, frowning, before continuing. "Anyway. I had to pull considerable strings for this. No one thought it was very wise, not after your last little excursion. There are some who will be watching this whole enterprise very closely. I want them to know you are now the levelheaded lad I say you are. Do you think we can convince them of that?"

"Yes, sir."

OH WOW, WHAT A PUNISHMENT!

No, this is just the authors lying again. This was never meant as a "punishment," but as a reward for good behavior. Bey never expected things to go that horribly wrong. Yes, Bester did learn more about the dangers to telepaths in the mundane world, but he also learned that _just fine_ when he went off with his cadre on a hiking trip - elsewhere said to be the first time in his life he ever left campus - and got beaten up by a normal. And then the next day, he goes to ask the normal train cop for help with the rogues, and the train cop _also_ tries to beat the shit out of him. As he puts it, "Mauled by two normals in as many days? No."

Lovely.

But the authors here have a more nefarious agenda - just like they have Bey call the "underground" the "underground railroad" to make that utter bullshit sound true, they have Bester saying that the purpose of the trip was to "punish him" and to teach him that "mundanes are evil to telepaths" (as if this isn't _actually_ true, but Corps propaganda). This so that later on, when his first girlfriend makes the accusation that the Corps (via Bey) took him on the mission to rescue Fatima as part of a Corps "brainwashing" program to make him hate and distrust normals, it can come across as _reasonable_. See? He said so himself, a few pages up! And see? He doesn't really argue with her when she makes these accusations! It's really all some "evil Corps plot" to brainwash telepaths against normal-kind, by showing him just the absolute worst!

"You only saw what they wanted you to see!" she accuses. ( _Deadly Relations_ , p. 135)

...So, Corps _wanted_ him to get attacked by normals? They _wanted_ him to run off and get shot by a rogue telepath? They _wanted_ to lose a Psi Cop rescuing him, and be forced to kill a rogue telepath as well? They _wanted_ Fatima to meet that fate - and several Psi Cops and bloodhounds to get killed in the rescue - so that they could falsely convince Bester there are false dangers? The director (a normal) wasn't the one trying to hurt Bester, it was Bey all along, the man who saved Bester's life three times?

She believes the Corps is made up of some nameless, faceless, evil "they."

Yes, she believes such things. That's horrible. But my issue here, as throughout canon, is that the _writers_ are being deceitful. Facts be damned, they have an agenda.

**Author's Note:**

> I think the guy who wrote this also doesn't know much about fencing, and got someone else to write some "fencing jargon" into the start of the chapter to hide that fact. If he knew about fencing, we'd see a fencing match - like the one that they won, but which he replaced with a team-building telepathy exercise instead.


End file.
